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a Tesla with full self-driving engaged. The

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0:53

times. Over

0:56

the past several weeks Tesla has

0:58

been crumbling. The company's stock, which

1:00

was once considered invincible, has now

1:02

plunged to around $250 a share,

1:04

down from nearly double that in

1:06

December. Sales are plummeting, dealerships are

1:08

overrun with protests, and Tesla's on

1:10

the street are being subject to

1:12

petty vandalism. All of this is

1:14

happening because of Elon Musk. Since

1:16

Trump took office and appointed Musk

1:18

as head of the Department of

1:20

Government Efficiency, or Doge, Musk has

1:22

facilitated the undue firing of tens

1:24

of thousands of government employees. Many

1:27

of these federal workers held critical

1:29

jobs like doing infectious disease research

1:31

or working as air traffic controllers.

1:33

But now it's looking like Tesla

1:35

is in trouble and Musk's involvement

1:37

in politics could be the company's

1:39

ultimate downfall. Rolling Stone Journalist Miles

1:41

Clea has been covering. Rolling Stone

1:43

Journalist Miles Clea has been covering

1:45

it all. And today he joins

1:47

me to talk about the Tesla

1:49

takedown movement, why it matters, and

1:51

if Tesla could ultimately be Musk's

1:53

Achilles heel. Miles, welcome to Poweruser.

1:56

relationship with Tesla. What role

1:58

does he currently hold? in Tesla.

2:00

Mosk is CEO of the company and

2:02

he has worked very hard to make

2:04

himself synonymous with the company. He was

2:06

not someone who was originally there, but

2:08

when he came aboard as an investor

2:10

and eventually took control of it, he

2:12

was able to secure an agreement that

2:14

called him a co-founder, so he gets to

2:16

call himself a co-founder of the company,

2:18

but in practice that's not exactly what

2:20

happened. But he did come in with

2:22

an agenda of we could have the

2:24

electric vehicle revolution, we got to save

2:26

the climate, all very kind of normy

2:28

lib-lib positions. you could say that made

2:31

the cars very popular with democratic

2:33

voters and left-leaning voters and

2:35

Certainly here in California there are a lot

2:37

of Tesla's on the road because people thought

2:39

of them as Clean and efficient and kind

2:41

of futuristic in a way Yeah, it seems

2:44

like Tesla for most of its time

2:46

on this earth The company has been

2:48

perceived as liberal like you mentioned throughout

2:50

Trump's first presidency and even back in

2:52

the Obama days Tesla was seen as

2:54

this liberal sort of beacon of hope

2:56

in the car industry and Elon Musk

2:58

was this champion of the environment and

3:00

I feel like actually his position in

3:02

Tesla really kind of made him seem

3:04

quite liberal for because people perceived him

3:06

as this warrior for the climate movement.

3:08

Definitely and it was perceived as like

3:10

a total win from a liberal standpoint

3:12

but it also was seen as a

3:14

great moment and kind of recovery for

3:17

American manufacturing of cars because it was

3:19

the first new American car manufacturer in

3:21

decades. So that was seen as a

3:23

sex sex story almost even a Republican

3:25

win you could say or at least

3:27

they would claim that as a Republican

3:29

win is that when you have these

3:32

manufacturing jobs like here in the US.

3:34

and we're building actually like the future

3:36

of automotive technology. I don't know that's

3:38

a big deal that almost like a

3:40

bipartisan consensus right you can claim a

3:42

win across the board even if say

3:44

voters in red states aren't necessarily lined

3:46

up to bielectric vehicles and they remain

3:49

sort of a coastal elite thing. Yeah

3:51

but he was such a champion like

3:53

you said of almost both parties to

3:55

Republicans he's bringing back manufacturing to liberals

3:57

he's a pioneer of clean energy and

3:59

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Fees apply. Tesla's also been under fire

14:46

from people that are workers' rights advocacy

14:48

organizations for their labor practices. Obviously environmentalists

14:50

have also railed against it because of

14:52

the fact that they're not actually that

14:54

environmentally forward as they claim. Have any

14:56

of those groups in playing a role

14:59

in this protest? Like who are most

15:01

of the people that are involved in

15:03

this Tesla takedown movement? There's a pretty

15:05

broad coalition. Ever since the Tesla takedown

15:07

site went up, there's just a lot

15:09

of advocacy groups. particularly on the left

15:11

and certainly workers' organizations. It's notable that

15:13

Musk, yeah, has sort of been engaged

15:16

in, you could say, union-busting type behavior,

15:18

and for that reason he has also

15:20

been going after the National Labor Relations

15:22

Board, which is a very important regulator

15:24

in this space. So, you know, workers'

15:26

movements are definitely attuned to what he's

15:28

doing. not just at his own companies

15:30

where there have been complaints of union

15:32

busting and sexual harassment and all sorts

15:35

of other things kind of being swept

15:37

under the rug, but of course he's

15:39

now trying to fire tens of thousands

15:41

of people in the federal government. So

15:43

the federal government employee unions are also

15:45

aware of this stuff and I think

15:47

plugged into the Tesla takedown as well.

15:49

I feel like this. Tesla sentiment also

15:52

creates opportunities for competitors to push their

15:54

own EV vehicles or kind of, I

15:56

don't know, seize some of those customers?

15:58

Are we seeing anything from the other

16:00

automakers or other businesses that are seeking

16:02

to capture some of Tesla's market? Like

16:04

are they taking advantage of this at

16:06

all? I think over in China, this

16:08

was already a problem for Tesla, honestly.

16:11

their competition was really heating up while

16:13

Musk was focused on this robot taxi

16:15

thing. Basically, he could have made a

16:17

cheaper Tesla for the down market. Tesla

16:19

was already really in a lot of

16:21

trouble with its competition. In China, there's

16:23

BID, which is way ahead of them,

16:25

a way cheaper car. He focused on

16:28

making the cyber truck instead of a

16:30

cheaper Tesla model that would have really

16:32

opened up the market for them. So

16:34

they lost out there. They're losing sales

16:36

in Europe. Their sales were down for

16:38

the first time this past quarter. So

16:40

the competition was already there. I think

16:42

the rivals are still thinking about how

16:44

they want to pursue this opportunity and

16:47

how they want to position themselves. But

16:49

certainly when you go to these protests,

16:51

there are people at the protest who

16:53

have these other new EVs, and they're

16:55

very excited about them. And when Tesla

16:57

owners come through, they say, you've got

16:59

to check out my electorate or a

17:01

Mazda or whatever it is, because they're

17:03

just raving about it. And they say,

17:06

Tesla's just not the only one in

17:08

the game anymore. It was so dominant

17:10

for so long that I think Musk

17:12

must got a little. complacent and a

17:14

little too tied up in these fever

17:16

dreams of turning it into an AI

17:18

company making humanoid robots. Yeah, what is

17:20

the deal with those Tesla robots? Because

17:23

I know Kim Kardashian is on the

17:25

cover of some magazine with one of

17:27

them today. Are these actual Tesla robots

17:29

or are they just like giant toys?

17:31

Famously when he debuted this, it was

17:33

just a guy in a body suit

17:35

sort of dancing as a robot. Eventually

17:37

they did create actual optimist robots and

17:39

then the big event where he unveiled

17:42

the prototype of the robot taxi, which

17:44

who knows if that will ever actually.

17:46

They had optimist spots serving at the

17:48

bar and stuff like that. So that

17:50

looked kind of impressive, but sure enough,

17:52

this turned out to be just operated

17:54

remotely by people. Oh my God. So

17:56

when you see that that's just a

17:59

basically a movie special effect like it's

18:01

nothing more complicated than that a lot

18:03

of people have pointed out in the

18:05

robotic space that the reason we don't

18:07

have humanoid robots working in the factory

18:09

is you don't need like a human

18:11

shape to robots working in the factory

18:13

is you don't need like a human

18:15

shape to do it for example if

18:18

you need like a human shape to

18:20

do it for example if you need

18:22

something done in the factory that's going

18:24

to be a human shape basically no

18:26

viable application for this technology and he's

18:28

kind of just obsessed with the appearance

18:30

of the future with no sort of

18:32

practical value. It seems like it's just

18:35

further trying to brand himself as this

18:37

like futurist and this big thinker and

18:39

this genius that's gonna envision this feature

18:41

where robots are our slaves and we

18:43

all have butler robots in our house

18:45

as you mentioned it makes no sense.

18:47

But it does seem like criticism gets

18:49

to him. I mean you can tell

18:51

online even how reactive he gets he

18:54

gets. that's when he sees criticism about

18:56

himself on acts. Is there any evidence

18:58

that these protests and that the recent

19:00

Tesla stock plunge is affecting Musk? He

19:02

doesn't seem well, and I think it's

19:04

known that he really struggles with exposure

19:06

to criticism. I mean, he... posted what

19:08

I think is now one of his

19:11

most iconic tweets, which was I'm verbally

19:13

abused every day on this platform. Who

19:15

can relate? They were considering a wellness

19:17

check on him after he got booed

19:19

at a Dave Chappelle show. Like he

19:21

doesn't take criticism well. In a recent

19:23

Fox News interview, he was asked how

19:25

on earth he is still running his

19:27

multiple giant companies while working as head

19:30

of Dosh and he really takes a

19:32

big pause and he says with great

19:34

difficulty and he looks really upset. and

19:36

then he was just on handaday the

19:38

other night pretty close to tears saying

19:40

that the left needs to have more

19:42

empathy for him and meanwhile he's on

19:44

X every day calling them the R

19:46

slur and all that kind of stuff

19:49

so he's he's very much a guy

19:51

who can dish it out but not

19:53

take it I guess and I don't

19:55

know if he's maybe having regrets about

19:57

getting into politics, it's funny because the

19:59

conventional wisdom for billionaires has always been,

20:01

well you kind of give equally to

20:03

both sides, you don't know who's going

20:06

to get into power, you just get

20:08

along with whoever it is, but he

20:10

got so pissed at Biden's SEC and

20:12

FAA and all this stuff that eventually

20:14

he just thought that he could just

20:16

strong-arm, you know, Republican policy and to

20:18

a certain extent he's been right, but

20:20

I think he's maybe understanding now that's

20:22

not really a long-term play. He might

20:25

be able to get away with a

20:27

lot in these first... few months, but

20:29

it could really come back to haunt

20:31

him. What do you think he's going

20:33

to do to try to counter these

20:35

efforts? I mean, do you see him

20:37

fighting back in any way? Are they

20:39

discounting Tesla to try to sell more?

20:41

Is anything happening to try to stymie

20:43

the losses? They are offering all kinds

20:45

of incentives on Tesla's, and they were in

20:47

the past year, like I said, they already

20:50

knew and saw the writing on the wall.

20:52

with respect to their competitors. So they

20:54

have been throwing those 0% APR

20:56

offers around. I think they started

20:58

discounting the cyber truck because they

21:00

have a huge amount of those

21:03

unsold. They claimed they had a

21:05

million reservations for it and I

21:07

think like only 30,000 people or

21:09

so felt a follow through on that.

21:11

And then Tesla's more generally, they just

21:14

have an insane overstock last year.

21:16

A bunch of reports went around because

21:18

you could... see these giant Tesla lots

21:20

from space, all these unsold Tesla's that

21:22

they have just been unable to unload?

21:24

From space? Yeah, satellite imagery would just

21:27

show their immense overstock of Tesla's and

21:29

that's not just cyber trucks, that's all

21:31

the models. So that was a problem

21:34

even before this political move and it

21:36

almost feels in retrospect like the alliance

21:38

with Trump was kind of desperate and

21:40

it was pretty risky, you would have

21:43

to say, even if he hadn't won,

21:45

it would have been maybe even worse

21:47

for him. now, but the toxicity of

21:49

being associated with the regime has been

21:51

pretty bad too. So... So do you

21:54

think that, you know, his foray into

21:56

politics and association with Trump will ultimately

21:58

lead to Tesla's downfall? It could accelerate

22:00

it. Like I've been saying, the

22:02

company was facing all these kinds

22:04

of headwinds and problems. It really

22:07

has not delivered on all these

22:09

promises that he's been making for

22:11

years and years. They are really behind

22:13

in the robot taxi fight. You can already

22:15

see cars in markets like LA that are,

22:17

you know, like a Waymo. that is

22:19

using Lydar and radar to drive

22:21

everywhere. They flee. Tesla has rejected

22:23

all that stuff. He wants to

22:26

just do video only. When you

22:28

say video only, you mean his

22:30

display. Instead of using Lydar to

22:32

sense things around, he just uses

22:34

video, right? Right. Tesla is just

22:36

a camera only system. So it's

22:38

just taking, I believe, eight cameras

22:41

on the vehicle, just taking all

22:43

that visual information and putting that

22:45

through a software program, which is AI

22:47

trained. him is, is Mark Roper recently

22:49

posted a video, I don't know if

22:51

you saw it, where he created this

22:53

test for the Tesla, that was basically

22:55

like the equivalent of, you know, Wiley

22:57

Coyote, like, drawing a tunnel onto like

22:59

a brick wall. They made this big

23:01

foam brick wall and they just screen

23:03

printed the image of a road onto

23:05

it. And the Tesla, like you said,

23:07

because it relies on video, just drove

23:10

straight through the wall because it couldn't

23:12

perceive the difference between a giant image

23:14

of a road and an actual road, which

23:16

is terrifying. No, it doesn't even know that

23:18

there's an object there. And I will say,

23:20

I have taken a ride as a passenger

23:23

in a Tesla with full self-driving engaged just

23:25

around the freeways here in LA, which is

23:27

not the easiest driving, granted. But the car

23:29

tried to kill us, I would say. at

23:32

least a half a dozen times and we

23:34

specifically did a demonstration where this group, the

23:36

Dawn Project, which is a software safety advocacy

23:39

group that tests the Tesla over and

23:41

over, showed me how it will just blow

23:43

past a stopped school bus and we'll hit

23:45

a kid as it's crossing the street. It

23:47

was a dummy mannequin, thankfully, just a demonstration,

23:50

but pretty scary. And especially when you're in

23:52

the car and it tries to make some

23:54

maneuver like a illegal left or it

23:56

tries to merge into something that's in the

23:59

lane next to you. doesn't seem like it's

24:01

that great of a system and it doesn't

24:03

feel like they're going to work out the

24:05

kinks that you know Musk keeps promising

24:07

they will while continually just talking about

24:09

AI and robots instead of the

24:11

car because the car business is really

24:13

not doing so great so he doesn't like

24:15

to talk about that much. Yeah it seems

24:18

like this Achilles heel for him like you

24:20

mentioned but at the same time Musk is

24:22

just always somehow able to pull it off.

24:24

I mean, I saw recently that Twitter is

24:26

now once again worth $44 billion, which is

24:28

what he paid for it after the valuation

24:31

plummeted, I think, even down to $10 billion.

24:33

It lost the majority of its value. And

24:35

now, you know, he's used his position and

24:37

he's used his political connections and all of

24:39

this to mainstream it and force it back

24:42

up. I mean, could he ultimately use the

24:44

Trump government to do the same to

24:46

give himself enough? tax breaks or something,

24:48

I don't know, to like basically use

24:51

the levers of the government to force

24:53

a success. Absolutely. I think that

24:55

you've maybe already seen one

24:57

in SpaceX being involved in

24:59

bringing the astronauts down from

25:01

the International Space Station. And

25:03

even as they are purportedly

25:05

cutting. wasteful government spending, SpaceX is

25:07

going to get billions and billions more

25:10

in government contracts. So he has these

25:12

other companies, he has these other plays.

25:14

Yes, maybe Tesla will take some hits,

25:16

maybe Nurellink will completely fail, and there

25:18

will be lawsuits from people who got

25:20

a chip in their brain that completely

25:22

makes them crazy. I don't know, maybe

25:24

Grock will be worth billions of dollars

25:26

one day. But he's clearly diversified in

25:28

a sense, so Tesla is just kind

25:30

of the most synonymous brand and... his point

25:33

of greatest vulnerability at this moment.

25:35

So I think that's why the

25:37

protest movement has really focused on

25:39

that. But with stuff like SpaceX's

25:42

garbage just raining down on other

25:44

nations and creating environmental havoc, I

25:46

think it's possible that we'll see

25:48

some movements against other parts of his

25:51

business empire as well. For people that

25:53

don't own a Tesla and can't sell their

25:55

car or don't own stock in Tesla,

25:57

how can they make an impact in

25:59

this movement? effect change. So the Tesla

26:01

takedown website is really thorough and well

26:03

organized you can go on there and

26:05

it's very easy to find the next

26:07

local protest near you. There's a lot

26:09

going on in the big cities of

26:12

course but you can even use it

26:14

to organize your own and get other

26:16

people in your area together wherever

26:18

the closest Tesla Center is. I think

26:20

that it will also be useful to

26:22

talk to Tesla owners in your lives

26:24

perhaps. I think that people continue to

26:27

be tuned out to a certain

26:29

extent and Maybe if they're aware of

26:31

the damage of some of these cuts

26:33

that are being made in the federal

26:35

government to you know USAID people who

26:37

are now being denied their medicine abroad

26:39

their treatment and you know people are

26:41

honestly dying so it's easy to be

26:44

in a bubble in the US even

26:46

as all this goes on so you

26:48

can talk to your parents or friends

26:50

who own a Tesla, maybe change their

26:52

mind about supporting the company. All right,

26:54

Miles, well, thank you so much for

26:57

chatting with me. Thank you. All right,

26:59

that's it for the show. You can

27:01

watch full episodes of Power User on

27:03

my YouTube channel at Taylor Larens, and

27:05

don't forget to subscribe to my tech

27:08

and online culture newsletter user mag.com. User

27:10

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